Introduction:
Cursed By God: The Consequences of Sin (Genesis 3:14-19):
- To the serpent: Defeat . (Gen 3:14-15)
- To the woman: pain at Home . (Gen 3:16)
Genesis 4:7 - And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is contrary to you, but you must rule over it.
- To the man: pain at Work . (Gen 3:17-19)
What does this have to do with Good Friday?
Galatians 3:10-13 - For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, "Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them." Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for "The righteous shall live by faith." But the law is not of faith, rather "The one who does them shall live by them." Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, "Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree"
Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
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00:54-00:56
Turn to Genesis 3 if you haven't already.
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You know, there's something about Good Friday that we feel something.
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You know what I'm talking about?
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It just feels different than like a Sunday morning service, you know?
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And that's natural, I suppose.
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And I'll never forget the woman, when I was at North Street, we were doing some evangelism in downtown Butler, and I'll never forget the woman we were sharing the gospel with, who told us that the worst thing that ever happened in history was they got Jesus.
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I'm like, "What do you mean?" And she said, "He was the most amazing teacher that there was, and he was doing so much good." And the woman literally started tearing up.
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And she said, "They got him. They killed him." And she starts weeping.
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And she said, "Think of all the good he could have done.
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If only they hadn't killed him!
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They got poor Jesus.
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And we lovingly tried to explain to her God's plan.
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But she was so emotionally distraught, I'm not sure how much she hurt.
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But my point in that is this.
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Even if your theology doesn't match hers, I think sometimes we can come to Good Friday service with the same sentiment.
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That we feel, and again it's natural, when you think Jesus on the cross, we think of this innocent man who was betrayed by one of his best friends.
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And he was arrested, and he was falsely accused, And He was killed in the most horrific manner a human being can be executed.
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We feel the heaviness of that.
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But we can't simply just reduce the cross to sympathy, because it's so much more than that.
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It's so far deeper than that.
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And truth be told, a lot of people have suffered and died over human history, and a lot of people have been executed the same way that Jesus was executed.
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So why did we gather here tonight to lift our voices up for this one?
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Well, if you're visiting with us tonight, if you're watching the stream for the first time, our church is in a series right now called Foundations, and it is a Theology 101 series.
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And on Sunday we talked about how sin entered the world.
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One tree, one law, one temptation, and one transgression.
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We saw Adam and his wife doubt the Word of God, and then believe the lie to deny the Word of God, and ultimately to disobey the Word of God.
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We saw Adam and his wife run from God, hide in shame, and blame everyone else.
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And you know not much has changed.
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Not much has changed in the way that sin manifests itself, and not much has changed in the consequences of sin.
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And you know sin has natural consequences, right?
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There are natural consequences just built into it.
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For example, if you lie, and people catch your lie, and they will, eventually they won't trust you.
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That's a natural consequence.
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Or if you have an anger problem, people aren't going to want to be around you.
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That is a natural consequence.
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If your sin is sexual in nature, you could destroy families.
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It's a natural consequence.
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If your sin is addiction, that leads to a whole lot of natural consequences.
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It can lead to stealing, it can lead to health issues, it can lead ultimately to death.
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So yeah, sin has natural consequences, but there's so much more than just the natural consequences of sin.
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Sin brings a curse.
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And that's what I want to talk about tonight.
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I want to talk about the curse.
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Right now somebody's thinking, "Am I in the right church?
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Because this sounds like it's going to get weird." Well, if you've thought that, it's because you've had this association of curse with voodoo or the occult.
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But do you know what the word "curse" means?
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It literally just means to pronounce a curse on someone.
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That's what it means.
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Some of us curse people all the time.
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when we say things like, "Damn you!" You're pronouncing a curse.
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Or to say that another way, when you say, "Go to hell!" That is a horrible, horrible thing to say to someone.
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When you do, you're pronouncing a curse.
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You're saying, "I wish you harm!
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I wish that God would condemn you!" It's horrible.
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And when you look at God's Word, you know the Bible is full of curses, right?
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There is Balaam, he was a professional cursor, right?
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You have Goliath, who was cursing Israel.
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You even have Peter.
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You remember when Peter was denying that he even knew who Jesus was, and he kept getting pressed on that.
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The Bible says, "He called down curses on himself." Do you understand what that means?
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That while Peter was being pressed, He was saying, "May I be damned if I know Him!" Calling a curse on Himself.
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Well, God Himself invokes curses.
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And this is what I want you to see tonight.
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Because if you don't see this, you're going to walk out one of these doors, and you're going to say, "Oh, poor Jesus, I should feel sad about that." And it is so much deeper than that.
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But here it is, church.
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Curses from God result from disobedience to God.
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I'm going to say that again.
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Curses from God result from disobedience to God.
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And this all started in Eden.
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And we're picking up where we left off.
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Adam and Mrs. Adam, at this point, they sinned.
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They were called out, they confessed, and now they are cursed.
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So if you're taking notes, which we always encourage you to do, on your outline tonight, "Cursed by God, the Consequences of Sin." Alright?
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Write this one down. First of all, letter A, "To the Serpent's Defeat." Look at verse 14.
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It says, "The Lord God said to the serpents, 'Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field.
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On your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life." Stop there.
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God here puts a curse on the animal that Satan used to tempt Eve.
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And we have to ask ourselves, "Well, what did the snake look like before this?" It looked like a dragon.
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You're like, "Well, how do you know that?" Because in Revelation 20, in verse 2, Satan is called a serpent and a dragon.
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And that's really what a dragon is, right?
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It's a snake with arms and legs.
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Not anymore.
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This was part of the curse, even on the animal that Satan used.
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And you're like, "Well, why would God curse the poor animal?" As if there's somebody here saying, "Oh, the poor snake." But why would God curse the animal?
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The reason was to turn it into a symbol.
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You know, God says you'll have no arms, and you'll have no feet, which means the serpent was disarmed and defeated.
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That was a really bad dad joke, I know.
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I thought I'd float it out there and it got the response I was expecting.
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You can thank Jillian for sending me that one.
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See, I blame just like Adam.
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But here's the point, church.
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Satan's goal was exaltation.
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He wanted to exalt himself above God.
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And God put a symbol on the serpent.
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Nah, he doesn't do that.
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He brought him down.
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That's why he says, "You will eat dust." That's a euphemism.
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That means you will be defeated.
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You see it again in the Bible, Psalm 72, Isaiah 49.
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Like you will be defeated.
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You thought you were going to exalt yourself?
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Not going to happen.
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And just as the rainbow is a reminder that God will never flood the earth again, a snake is a reminder that Satan is defeated.
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Look at verse 15.
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It says, "I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel." Enmity. Enmity, Satan, between you and the woman, between your offspring and her offspring.
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You're like, "Wait, wait, wait, wait. Satan has offspring? Well, we know that Satan doesn't give birth, but Satan does have children, right? Jesus said that in John 8.44. What between them. You see when Satan tempted Adam and Eve, tempted Eve rather, and Adam was with her, when he tempted her, and he got Adam and Eve to transgress God, Satan thought, "Now they're friends with me, and they're enemies of God." And God here was saying, "I'm going to change that.
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I'm going to flip that around to the extent that some days, he says, "He," talking of one of Eve's future offspring, "He shall bruise your head, you shall bruise his heel." This is the first announcement of the gospel.
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Right after the fall of man, the first thing God says out of the gate is, "There's a Savior coming." Notice it's a specific "He." He, one of this woman's offspring in particular, Satan is going to defeat you.
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And yeah, Satan had a minor victory.
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That's the bruising the heel.
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Satan had a minor victory, and that was the death of Jesus Christ.
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But that was the means by which he was ultimately going to be crushed.
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In other words, you're going to bite his heel, But your head's going to be close enough to his foot that he's going to stomp you out.
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So to the serpent God says, "Defeat. That's your curse. You are defeated.
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Let her be to the woman, pain at home." Pain at home.
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Verse 16, it says, "To the woman," again this is the Lord speaking, He's talking about the consequences of sin.
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It says, "To the woman, He said, 'I will surely multiply your pain and childbearing.'" In pain, you shall bring forth children.
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Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you." You see, women are cursed to suffer in the two most important relationships that they have with their children and with their husband.
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First of all, the Lord says, "I will multiply pain and childbearing." Is there anybody that can give testimony to that?
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Is that true?
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I mean, I've heard.
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I don't think I have to sell anybody on that.
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But he says, "Your desire shall be for your husband." And that's an interesting phrase, because you can look at that and think, "Well, that's good, right?
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Because shouldn't a woman desire her husband?" This isn't a positive thing here.
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This is actually negative.
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The word means literally this.
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It means to seek control.
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This exact wording is used one other place in the Old Testament.
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It's in the very next chapter, in Genesis 4, verse 7.
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The Lord says to Cain, "If you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door." Look at this.
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"Its desire is contrary to you, but you must rule over it." It means, literally, desire to have control over.
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The Lord's telling Eve that there's going to be an authority struggle in the home.
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This next phrase, it says, "He shall rule over you." You can't miss this because "He shall rule" in the Hebrew, that's not a nice term.
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He's going to be a wonderful protector head of the home.
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That "He shall rule" is a very harsh term.
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That's a dictator term.
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What does that mean?
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It means this.
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To the woman, the Lord said, "You're going to have desire to have control over Him, but He's going to misuse His authority over you." There's going to be pain and conflict in what was a harmonious relationship.
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And I won't ask anybody to shout out if they can give testimony to that.
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But that is a reality to some degree in every marriage.
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You see, the woman took the lead in the fall.
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She acted independently from Adam during the temptation.
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And that rebellion against God's ordained roles is going to be permanent.
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That's why you see it in homes.
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That's why you see a husband and wife not on board with finances, which I hear is the number one cause of divorce.
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That's why when it comes to family direction, husband and wife not on board.
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That's why when it comes to worship, husband and wife oftentimes not on board.
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It's part of the curse.
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This is what the natural, sinful direction is going to be because of sin.
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and let her see to the man pain at work." Pain at work.
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Look at verse 17.
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It says, "And to Adam he said, 'Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, you shall not eat of it.
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Cursed is the ground because of you.
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In pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life.'" See the Lord was saying to Adam, "Hey, you chose to do what she wanted instead of what I want it.
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Adam, you were more concerned about her than you were about me." He says, "So cursed is the ground.
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And just as the curse hits woman where she lives, curse hits man where he lives, and that's the workplace." Now, kids, work was pre-fall.
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We just had a whole sermon about that recently at our church.
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Work was pre-fall.
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Work was not part of the curse.
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The curse is the Lord saying, work is going to be hard. Hard work is going to consume your life. And I gotta tell you in this culture this is kind of a hard sell because honestly we have it way too good here. But I would encourage you to go visit some of our friends in Thailand. Go visit some of our friends in Nepal where it's a daily really struggle to make sure that we are planting, and we are cultivating, and we are harvesting, and we are breaking our backs to put food on the table for our family.
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It's a lot harder there.
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Look at verse 18.
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The Lord continues, "Thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you, and you shall eat the plants of the field.
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By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread "Return to the ground, for out of it you were taken, for you are dust, and to dust you shall return." Judgment on creation itself, thorns, thistles, sweat.
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You're going to be working hard at them, and the very ground is going to be fighting back against you.
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The ground itself is cursed. Have you noticed that?
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Have you noticed that the ground produces all by itself, but never food?
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Right?
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Like, what do you mean by that? Here's what I mean.
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Go clear a lot somewhere.
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Just get a plot of land and clear it.
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Don't touch it. And come back in a year.
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Are you going to find an apple orchard there?
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Are you going to find green beans growing?
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No. What are you going to find? Tell me.
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Weeds, right? Lots of weeds.
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That's the curse.
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God says, "Adam..." Just paraphrasing verse 19, He says, "You came from dirt, and you're going to work really hard in the dirt, and eventually you're going to be dirt again." So, "Adam, the Lord saying, 'You and your wife chose to ignore Me.
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You chose to disobey me, so now life is short and difficult." There was one law in the garden. You know that?
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One thing. One prohibition. Just one.
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And man failed. And we're cursed.
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And all these things that we see here, you can see it today, can't you?
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Man failed. Man's cursed.
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Well, you can fast forward in your Bible to the days of Moses.
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And there, God gave the Old Testament law, also called the Mosaic law.
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It's laid out in your Bibles in the books of Leviticus and Deuteronomy.
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And it turned into a lot more than one law, than one rule.
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We're not going to turn there now, but Deuteronomy 27 and 28, check it out sometime.
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Pretty detailed list.
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Disobey, cursed. Disobey, cursed. Disobey, cursed.
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Don't do this or you're cursed. Don't do this or you're cursed.
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Don't do this...
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God results in curse from God.
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So you're like, what does this have to do with Good Friday?
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You know, I came in here tonight thinking I was going to hear something about Good Friday, and we've been in Genesis.
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What does all of this talk of curse have to do with Good Friday?
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Galatians chapter 3, look at this very closely.
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Paul writes, "For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse.
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For it is written, 'Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law and do them.'" Do you see what he's saying?
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He's saying if it is your goal to be righteous by obeying God's Word, you're going to end up under a curse.
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Why?
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Because you have to do it all.
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And you have to do it all perfectly.
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That's why he says, "Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for the righteous shall live by faith." He says, "But the law is not of faith, rather the one who does them shall live by them." Same point.
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He's saying if you think you're going to obey God, and that's going to be the means of your salvation and your righteousness, you're going to end up under a curse, because none of us can do it.
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So you're saying that we're all under a curse, is that what you're saying?
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Yeah.
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Not only did we inherit the sin nature of Adam, but we've chosen at some point in our lives to disobey the Word of God. And according to the Word of God, that puts us under a curse. Here it is. Look at this. It says, "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us. For it is written, "Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree." Under the Old Testament law, when a lawbreaker, when a criminal was executed, usually by stoning, they would take his body and they would hang it on a tree for everyone to see as an example.
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Say, "Look, this is what happens when you disregard the Word of God.
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Everybody take a good look." And that criminal wasn't cursed by being hanged on a tree.
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He was hanged on the tree because he was cursed.
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And this is Paul's point here in Galatians.
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And if you try to be righteous by keeping the law, you end up cursed because you can't keep it.
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Have you ever broken a commandment?
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Have you ever stolen anything?
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Have you ever committed adultery?
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Which by the way, Jesus said lusting is the same as committing adultery.
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Have you ever murdered someone?
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By the way, Jesus said hating someone was the same as murder.
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Have you ever disobeyed your parents?
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Have you ever told a lie?
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We're all cursed by nature and we can't work our way out of it.
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But on the cross, Jesus in taking our sin on himself became a curse for us.
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Do you understand now why we can't just look at Jesus on the cross and say, "Oh, they got Him, the poor man." Do you understand now why this is so much deeper than Jesus being just some martyr for some cause.
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This is God in the flesh, perfectly innocent, laying down His life so that He could become A curse for us.
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You know the ultimate curse is hell, isn't it?
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The ultimate curse is being separated from God.
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That's what hell is.
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Being eternally separated from Him.
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And do you know, while Jesus was on the cross, He experienced the full pain of hell.
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which is why he cried out, right Dan?
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"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" He said that not only to fulfill the Scripture, but because he was literally experiencing the pain of hell, the pain of separation from God.
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That's why Jesus is different than every other person who's ever been executed, every other person that's ever been crucified, because the infinite suffering that should come on us, God's wrath against our rebellion, you see Jesus stepped in and He said, "Let that be on Me.
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I will take that so that whoever believes in Me will never have to." And when you see Jesus on the cross, and you realize that He took the curse that's on Me, He took that on Himself, What we should be thinking maybe is, "That should have been me.
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I should have paid.
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I deserve to experience God's wrath for my sin, but Jesus took my place.
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Jesus took my curse.
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So now because of Him, I'm no longer cursed.
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Has He taken yours?"
Small Group Discussion
Read Genesis 3:14-19
What was your big take-away from this passage / message?
What is a curse? What does it mean that disobedience to God results in a curse from God? What does this have to do with Jesus? See Galatians 3:10-13
What is faith? How did Adam demonstrate faith (Gen 3:20)?
Explain the significance of God clothing Adam and Eve with skins (Gen 3:21).
Why did God drive Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden (Gen 3:22)? How was this actually a blessing for them?
Breakout
Pray for one another.